


Today, anew

by MemeKonVLD (MemeKonYA)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, First Kiss, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry Keith, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Pining Keith (Voltron), Sharing a Bed, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Violence, Voltron Secret Santa Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8997565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemeKonYA/pseuds/MemeKonVLD
Summary: “Lance.”Lance’s eyebrows furrow in concern for a second before his whole face goes gentle and open.“Hey buddy, everything okay?”Keith nods. Then shakes his head, then opens his mouth to let out a noisy sob before he’s hugging the air out of Lance, grip vise tight. Lance hugs him back. That’s one of the great things about him— he doesn’t— he doesn’t need explanations for things like this. He doesn’t make Keith jump through hoops, the way other people might— he’s just— he just knows what Keith needs in times like this. No façades, no posturing.(Or: the one where Keith is trapped in a time loop. A time loop from hell.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gigapoodle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigapoodle/gifts).



> This is my secret santa gift for Melanie (arcasangels), for the Voltron Secret Santa Exchange.  
> Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy your gift :)
> 
> (See end notes for details on the temporary character death.)

Cold. Sticky. Pungent.  
  
Everywhere. All over his hands, all over the ground, coating the white of his armor, blending with the red of it, seeping into his black suit underneath.

_Blood._

He looks down at his hands, can see them shaking, covered in red, dripping down. Beyond them he can see the blurry outline of a body, torn.

He crawls over to it, unseeing, his heart beating hard enough to hurt inside his chest, his gasping, struggling breathing loud in his own ears, drowning out everything else.

He hears himself calling out, gasping out a name as his hands reach out for the body on the ground. He feels like he’s looking at everything through a fisheye lens, seeing too much, too distorted; too much input, flesh too real under his hands when he touches a face too cold.

He bends over himself, pained, anguished, consumed by a sudden wave of grief.

He screams, screams, screams until he can hear his voice crack, until his throat’s gone dry. He digs fingers into the few pieces of armor that remain intact on the corpse and tears them away viciously, and then leans his ear against a still chest, waiting for some sort of insane miracle.

Miracles don’t come, and beneath him there’s only silence and death.

He stays there, curled into himself, holding on. He eventually turns his face so he can look at a face still, stained, bruised, suddenly serene in death, hardly recognizable with eyes closed and no smirks, nothing animated, nothing like him.

He’s dragged away. He tries to cling, fights to stay there, tries to shake hands off, to resist, but eventually someone tells him _sorry, buddy_ and he’s off, like a light, arms falling limp by his side, eyes closing on the sight of Lance’s body getting maneuvered onto a stretcher, limbs twisted in unnatural angles, face unchanging.

 

He stumbles his way out of the cryopod and struggles against the arms that reach towards him. He’s weak and his mind’s a mess, but he knows he has to see Lance, has to, has to—  
  
—he’s engulfed in Hunk’s arms. Hunk’s crying, he’s crying and shaking, and Keith’s arms hug him back of their own accord.

“Keith, he’s _dead_.”

“No,” he says, tiny, almost an exhale, even as his arms tighten around Hunk and start shaking.

“No, no, he’s— he isn’t dead, he—”

“ _Keith_ ,” Hunk whispers, broken. "C'mon, don't— this is—"  
  
"No. You're lying. He's your _friend_ , why are you— why would you—"  
  
"He's my  _best_ friend, Keith. Not just my friend." His hold on Keith tightens, and Keith feels him trembling. "He's been my best friend forever. I can't— I can't remember my life before him, you know? It's been us two as far back as I can remember. And now he's—  
  
"Now I'm gonna have to explain to his mom what happened. I'm gonna have to tell his family that he's not coming back. I don't— This is not what I wanted. This is not what we planned. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen."  
  
Hunk's breathing is shallow as he vomits every single word out, panicked and loud and harsh. Keith is unable to do anything but watch as Hunk breaks down, now keeping him at arm's length, eyes snapped shut, tears sliding down his dark cheeks.  
  
"We— I saw—”  
  
"Hunk," Keith's own voice is shards of glass, brittle and hollow sounding. " _I'm sorry_ ."  
  
" _You didn't do anything, Keith_."  
  
It's not an accusation. Keith knows it. Keith knows how kind Hunk is, down to his core and even now, broken and miserable (— _like he is_ ).  
  
He knows. He knows, and yet all he can do is replay how it all happened, think about all the hundreds of ways this could've been avoided. All the different ways he could've saved Lance, if only he'd been faster, if only he'd been a better strategist, if only he'd listened more to Lance, if only—    
  
"It doesn't matter, Keith." Hunk says, resigned and hurt. "What ifs don't matter, what ifs are— what ifs are useless. What if we had never followed you back on Earth? What if we had never gone to the Garrison? It’s useless. You beating yourself up over this isn't gonna bring him back. Beating ourselves up isn't gonna bring him back."  
  
"What should we do then?" Keith asks, lost, eyes on the floor, unseeing. "What do we do now?"  
  
"I don't know." Hunk tells him, and sniffles pitifully. Keith registers that the hold he has on his arms is a bit painful, too tight— it'll probably bruise.  
  
Good.  
  
He deserves it.

  
  
Lance's body is kept in a pod.  
  
Allura tells Keith it's to preserve him as soon as she sees the look in his eyes— looks at him with kindness but speaks the words with firmness, making sure that Keith can't misunderstand, that Keith won't delude himself into thinking that maybe— that maybe Lance can be brought back.  
  
He can't.

  
  
Pidge doesn't come out of her quarters all day. Keith only notices when Shiro says he'll take her something to eat later as he sits down for dinner.  
  
He feels bad about that for a few seconds. Then his eyes end up fixed on the empty spot next to him, where Lance would be sitting if—  
  
He can't touch his food after that. He can only play with his food as he has a quiet breakdown.  
  
He's not the only one without an appetite, anyway.

 

He waits.  
  
He lies on his bed and waits.  
  
There's nothing much to listen to.  
  
There are no cars, in space. No crickets. No wind. No sand.  
  
He waits.  
  
There's a ticker on his desk. He's learned to read it in the time he's spent in the castle. He can translate all its symbols, can convert into days, hours, minutes.  
  
Humans' adaptive capacity is unparalleled.  
  
He had a social studies teacher who used to say that when students asked certain questions.  
  
Keith never got that until Voltron.

When the ticker tells him it's late enough, he goes to Lance.  
  
He knows there's nothing in that pod other than flesh and bone. But Lance still looks the same. He looks like he'll stumble his way out of there at any minute, tousled and groggy and flirty.

  
  
He dreams about Lance.  
  
They're back in the Garrison. It's orientation day.  
  
Keith knows it's a dream because when he bumps into Lance this time— just the way it happened back then— Lance gives him a smile, and Keith says 'hi' instead of panicking and walking away.


	2. Chapter 2

He notices something’s not quite right as soon as he wakes up.

_ His bed. _

He opens his eyes, heartbeat already thundering in his own ears, and stares at the top of his bunk. 

He’s in his own quarters. In his own bed.

He turns around and looks at his ticker. 

He frowns.

__ What the hell—  
  
  
  
He runs. 

He tells himself he probably went back to bed half-asleep, his ticker’s probably malfunctioning, there are probably reasonable explanations for everything— 

— but he runs. He doesn’t put his jacket or his boots on, he just climbs out of bed and leaves the way he is, banging his shoulder against his door in the hurry to get out. He  _ runs _ .

He slams his hand on the door once he reaches his destination. He doesn’t even have it in him to knock, can barely stop himself from trying to pry the thing open himself. His breathing is erratic, and he’s just slamming his hand down again and again, hard, making the palm of his hand sting.

His stomach fills with dread, his heart fills with resignation and grief, his mind is full of ‘of course this wasn’t gonna work, you dumbass’ as he stands there, desperately banging on Lance’s door.

He’s slowing down, eyes welling up with tears, when his hand suddenly finds softness. 

He looks up.

“What the heck, Keith?”

He stops breathing. His tears slide down his cheeks, feeling cold as ice. He can’t blink, can’t take his eyes away from Lance’s face, soft from sleep even as he gives Keith the stink eye, rubbing absently at where Keith had hit him.

“ _ Lance _ .”

Lance’s eyebrows furrow in concern for a second before his whole face goes gentle and open.

“Hey buddy, everything okay?”

Keith nods. Then shakes his head, then opens his mouth to let out a noisy sob before he’s hugging the air out of Lance, grip vise tight. 

Lance hugs him back. That’s one of the great things about him— he doesn’t— he doesn’t need explanations for things like this. He doesn’t make Keith jump through hoops, the way other people might— he’s just— he just knows what Keith needs in times like this, and gives it. No façades, no posturing.

Keith keeps crying, messy and loud and uncaring of whoever might hear them— let the whole castle wake up for all he cares, this is a festivity, a miracle, a weird fucking impossibility— and what the fuck does he even _ care _ , let them all wake up. 

Lance holds him back, and for the first time since Keith saw Lance go down the day before, he feels like he can finally breath, like he can finally  _ think _ .

It doesn’t even matter that technically the day before isn’t the day before, but today.

  
  


It does matter.

Nobody remembers.

Not even Coran. Not even  _ Hunk _ .

Lance drags him to breakfast (after having moved over to his bed and letting Keith cling to him for what felt like hours and yet no time at all), telling him things like “you’re not ruining my meals schedule, my guy” and “no, really, you have no idea what skipping meals does to you, that shit’s not healthy, let me tell you” and “come on, Keith, we sit next to each other anyway, you can do your octopus thing while we have some  _ delicious _ morning goo”.

Keith glares at him for the last one, because he knows it’s the normalcy Lance is craving after Keith’s— after Keith.

Keith doesn’t know what he expects to happen once they step into the dining hall, really.

But it isn’t the absolute lack of reaction they actually get.

Coran and Pidge are working together on a project— just like they’d been the day before. And they don’t look up.

Allura and Shiro are going over information projected from an holographic device— just like they’d been the day before. They don’t look up.

Hunk is absent— just like the day before— and arrives just as they’re all sitting down to eat— just like the day before.

He doesn’t say a thing.

Keith’s stomach drops like a stone from a cliff. 

He does cling to Lance all through breakfast, holding his wrist under the table until Lance gives him a sideways glance and slides his arm until their hands are palm to palm, and he squeezes Keith’s. He gives him a small lopsided smile and digs back into his food.

Keith squeezes back and sighs before trying to get some food in him.

He tell himself maybe this is— maybe this means nothing. Maybe this is just nothing at all.

(His gut isn’t that easily convinced, tied up in anxious knots.)

  
  


They get the SOS signal —just like the day before. 

Allura makes the call to go aid the people of Tebris —just like the day before. 

This time Keith is ready, however. 

It doesn’t matter what’s going on, doesn’t matter why he’s apparently getting a do-over— it doesn’t matter.

What matters is— he can do this. He can save Lance. 

He gets the Galran soldier down before he reaches Lance, knowing where exactly he’d been hiding, when he’d strike. He breathes heavily as he dislodges his bayard from the soldier’s chest. He gets blood spattered on him, and it feels unlike it’s ever felt before. 

Lance stops the next one, a clean shot to the head of a soldier intending to attack Keith.

It goes well. It goes fine. They’re both covered in dirt and blood but they laugh as they lean on each other. Lance ruffles his hair and thanks him for having his back there and Keith bites his lip on everything that wants to spill out.

It’s good— 

— until it isn’t.

A stray shot from a dying Galran. An accident. Something nobody could’ve predicted.

Straight to the back of Lance’s head and right through, precise, as if guided by the hand of destiny.

Keith can only see it happen in shock, mind full of static as Lance hits the ground.

“No,” he whispers.

Hunk screams, drops to the ground next to Lance’s body and hugs it tight, getting his blood everywhere, on his hands, on his armor, on his face as he presses their faces together.

“No,” he whispers again, and shakes his head, walking a few steps back.

  
  


It all happens mostly like it did the day before, after that. With the difference that Hunk isn’t there when Keith wakes up from his cryosleep, and he doesn’t show up for dinner either.

Keith can’t blame him.

He leaves food outside his door, but doesn’t knock. 

He knows he’s not going to be welcome right then.

  
  


He still goes to sleep next to Lance’s pod. 

This time there’s no mistaking he’s dead. There’s no fantasy to be had, even with the wound clean. 

Allura had wanted to pull the pod down, so they wouldn’t have to see him, but Keith had refused, and Allura has given him a sad, pitying look that he hadn’t felt up to fighting against. She’d eventually nodded, and Shiro had given him a look that said he’d want to talk to him alone, but Keith had averted his eyes and left the room to take refuge in his quarters.

  
  


This time he dreams of them reuniting after that wormhole. 

They both smirk at each other, and Lance puts his hand up for a high five —just like he’d done.

Keith holds onto Lance’s hand after slapping it though, this time. And tells him he’s glad he’s okay.

Lance tells him he is glad Keith’s okay too.

They smile at each other until Hunk comes over and hugs them both, bone-crushingly tight. And then the three of them are laughing, full and relieved.


	3. Chapter 3

His bed. Again.

He puts his hands over his closed eyes and just lies there, knowing where he is, knowing it isn’t where he was when he went to sleep, having a pretty good idea of what he’ll see once he opens his eyes.

He feels— he doesn’t know how he feels. Is it a stage of panic? Has he gone beyond panic? He has no idea what the hell he’s feeling, other than— bad. In a general sense.

The ticker tells him what he already knows when he finally opens his eyes. Fifth cycle of the third Altean lunar phase. Just like the day before, and the one before that.

He only realizes he’s crying when he notices his hands getting wet.

  


Seeing Lance in the dining hall makes his chest ache.

Everything else is the same.

Keith sits down and feels like he isn’t even there, and when it’s time to he eats, numb.

Lance steals glances all through the meal, and Keith wants to— he doesn’t even know what he wants. He just knows it’s not this. He just knows that what’s happening is unfair and fucked up.

  


He gets in a fight with Allura over Tebris.

She goes on about their mission, about dedication and kindness, about a million things that Keith knows are truths. Keith just barks and barks and barks, not able to tell the truth, to say that responding to the call and helping the Tebrians is dooming Lance to death, and him to misery. He just says it’s risky, and unnecessary, and when Allura glares at him and tells him she expected better of him, he just turns up his nose.

He can take this. He can deal with her disappointment.

He’d accept much worse to save everyone from what’s bound to happen.

  


In the end it comes down to a vote. Keith is outnumbered.

  


In the aftermath he feels anger. He feels _rage_. Furious and hot and red. He lashes out, says horrible things, tries to hurt everyone the way he’s being hurt, tries to drag them down how he’s being dragged down. He stops when he starts having difficulty breathing.

A panic attack.

He kneels on the ground and tries to stop hyperventilating. Tries to focus on something, anything.

He anchors himself to Lance’s hand, half curled. Long fingers, cared-for nails, a scar acquired during one of their first missions, almost fading to nothingness.

He carries Lance inside himself, this time. Doesn’t let anyone else help.

  


He’s the one who doesn’t get dinner that night.

  


This time it’s the fight against Sendak.

It goes exactly as it had gone in reality, down to the last detail.

Keith holds Lance’s warm hand in his and they smile softly at each other, and when Lance loses consciousness Keith is the one to carry him over to the pod, just like it had happened before.

The difference is this time Keith stays behind when everyone else is contemplating the differences between seconds and ticks, and he’s there to catch a groggy, clumsy Lance as he stumbles out of the cryopod.

Lance smiles at him, a little loopy, just the way he’d smiled at Allura, and tells him _hey there, bud, looking good_ and Keith’s cheeks burn, but he rolls his eyes and smiles back at him.


	4. Chapter 4

He wakes up to softness and a heavy resignation, and his stomach tearing itself apart in a mix of both that and a pain that hasn’t left since the first time he saw Lance fall.

He turns around on the bed, opens his eyes. Closes them back, almost instantly.

Fifth cycle of the third Altean lunar phase. 

Again.

  
  


This time he tries stopping Allura when she’s opening up the wormhole to Tebris. It’s messy and aggressive, but he does it. He can’t think of other solutions, and can’t let— can’t keep— 

Allura looks at him in horror as they get absorbed into the unknown. And— Keith knows. He knows what he’s just done’s reckless, stupid, a terrible decision, but all he can do is hope it’ll somehow turn out better, that it’ll somehow break this freaking  _ curse _ . It’s all he can  _ think _ of.

  
  


They get transported right into the middle of an armada of Galra battleships, getting primed for battle.

They maneuver their way out of the situation, barely. 

They still lose Lance. 

  
  


Shiro follows him into his room after all is said and done. Keith knows he wants an explanation, whatever it is, for his behavior today. But he also knows Shiro won’t ask for one, wouldn’t on a regular day, and much less today with Lance’s— with Lance’s loss hanging over all of them, choking all of them— and he can’t— he doesn’t even know how to broach the subject on his own. 

He doesn’t have any justifications, he has nothing. 

He has pain.

Shiro hugs him when he breaks down in tears, screams tearing out of his throat, fists pounding his pillow, and Keith feels ten again, enfolded in the arms of the closest thing to family he ever had before he had the other Paladins. He sinks into Shiro’s hold and screams himself raw, stretching the fabric of Shiro’s shirt as he fists handfuls of it.

  
  


He wakes up alone. No headaches, no throat aches, no puffy eyes. No Shiro drooling in his sleep and kicking his shins black and blue. 

He doesn’t have to check, but still does. Fifth cycle of the third Altean lunar phase. 

  
  


Fifth cycle of the third Altean lunar phase. 

Fifth cycle of the third Altean lunar phase. 

Fifth cycle of the third Altean lunar phase. 

The days start blending together, coming and going with Keith losing himself, losing every single bit of— of anything he has, trying to break out of this damned loop. 

He loses the count of how many times he’s woken up to the same day, of how many times he’s had to watch Lance die. 

It never— it never gets any easier. Repetition doesn’t dull that out. He’s lost count of the times, but he’ll never forget any single way he’s lost Lance. Those are burned inside his mind, in the back of his eyes, there for him every time he closes them, never leaving him.

  
  


One day he decides he won’t— he just won’t do it. He can’t.

Lance comes knocking on his door, full of taunting and smirks, and once he sees Keith, hugging his own knees, he crawls over to him, kicking his shoes off and shoving him against the wall with his pointy elbow and tells him all about his morning, and then about this experiment they did with Hunk the night before, and then about how mornings were spent in his home, before the Garrison.

Allura’s voice comes through the intercom to alert them they’ll be going out on a mission, and Keith’s heart sinks.

He shoots an arm out and holds onto Lance’s hand when Lance starts drawing away, feigning irritation at having his anecdotes interrupted. Lance looks at him, a questioning frown in his face.

He won’t be able to stop Lance. He can’t keep him here forever.

He lets Lance go. And then follows him out of the door.

But he’ll be damned if he’ll ever let him go through this on his own.

  
  


(That time Lance dies in his arms, Keith the last thing he sees. He smiles at Keith, gasps out that it’s a pity he won’t get to tell Keith about that one time with his nana and the blueberry pancakes. Keith presses their foreheads together and lies, tells Lance that he will, that they will somehow save him, that he’s being a shithead.)

  
  


The following the day, he goes to Pidge.

“Okay,” she says, slowly, after he’s done relying everything to her (sparing her the details— it’s bad enough that he has to live with those). “So you’re telling me you’re stuck in some sort of— time loop? A real one? Like that super old movie? Only— you know, more sci fi and less whatever that was— I swear to God the 90s were so weird—”

“ _ Pidge _ .”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” She scratches her head, and Keith watches her mull the situation over. “I don’t know, Keith. This is beyond anything we’ve ever learned. This is beyond anything I’ve ever investigated. There is speculation, yes, and theories, but— nothing exactly reputable, you know? Just outliers on the scientific communities—”

“It’s  _ real _ ,” he hisses. “It’s real, and I’m stuck in it, and I need your help.”

Pidge looks up at Keith then, and Keith feels shitty about doing this to her.

“I mean, I can try? I can— I don’t know, I guess I—”

“It’s fine.” Keith tells her, then. “Maybe it’s just— just a dream. And I’m overreacting.”

“But you said that—”

“It’s  _ fine _ ,” he repeats. Then he asks, “how are the calibrations to the castle’s defenses going?”

Pidge narrows her eyes at him, but after a few seconds of tense silence, she just sighs and falls into a long rambling monologue about stuff that Keith can only half understand.

  
  


As soon as the signal from Tebris comes, Pidge turns towards him, an indescribable expression on her face. 

  
  


(He doesn’t look at her in the aftermath. He can’t.)

  
  


The dreams don’t stop, either. Like clockwork, every night a retelling. Every night a way in which his relationship and Lance’s could’ve gone differently, if only Keith had done things differently, in some way. None of them are big, sweeping gestures. They are all tiny things, they are all the things Keith would’ve wanted to do— the things he didn’t do because he was scared, because he was nervous—  

—because he thought he’d _ have time _ .

Those are the worst ones.


	5. Chapter 5

“How do I stop it?”

“How do you stop what?” Lance asks, distractedly. He’s piling his plate up with goo, and when he sees that Keith’s still remains empty, he starts filling Keith’s up too.

“How do I stop a time loop? How do I stop a day from going on forever?”

“Hypothetically? I guess there must be something, like― holding the loop together, right? So you should get on that,” Lance replies, grinning and waving his spoon around as he speaks.  

Keith’s heart clenches.

“Yeah.” He agrees. “You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Lance retorts. 

Keith snorts, and cleans some green goo off Lance’s cheek with his thumb.

“Don’t push it,” he says, affectionate even to his own ears.

  
  


The signal comes, as it always does. 

Keith is the first one to suit up.

  
  


He feels like he makes the decision in a split second, in just no time at all, but once he does he doesn't doubt it at all, doesn't question himself. He just feels that it is what he ought to do, that it is exactly what needs to happen.    
  
_ There must be something holding the loop together, right? _   
  
And there's only one constant here, one single thing that always remains unchanged no matter what.   
  
Him. He is the constant. He's the glue holding this bizarre thing together.    
  
So all he has to do is  _ remove the glue _ .   
  


He keeps a silent countdown in his own head.    


He knows this fight by heart. All the moves are ingrained in him. Everything that happens to the tiniest detail. He can see what the Galras do before they even do it. 

He moves the way he's done it before, all instinct, all speed, all close range hand to hand combat and slashing through unaware soldiers.    
  
He keeps an eye on Lance, taking care of the Galran snipers, watching Keith's back, all focus as he takes soldier after soldier down.    
  
Lance calls out for him, like he always does when they make it this far, and Keith knows exactly what he means, and moves in tandem with him, seamlessly, to allow Lance cover as he shoots a small battleship down.   
  
"Great, space ranger," Lance tells him, and leans more heavily on him for a second before he's back to business, one hundred percent on the task at hand.   
  
20, 19, 18.   
  
Keith can hear Shiro in the distance, giving Hunk directions, and he can hear Hunk's replies, the faintest bit unnerved. He doesn't know where Pidge is, but he knows she's working on disabling the mother ship's energy supply. She always gets it in the end, allowing Allura to pilot the castle ship right through the Galran defenses. Allura doesn't shoot the settlement up out of fear of collateral damage, but the Galrans always know that their fight is lost as soon as their artillery is there, their own numbers having dwindled even when facing just the five of them.    
  
It's why they all got confident, Keith thinks.    
  
It's why we didn't pay attention to that one soldier, we could've noticed him sooner.     
  
We were overconfident.   
  
10, 9.   
  
It doesn't matter anymore.    
  
5, 4.    
  
He can hear Lance's ragged breathing. He can feel the warmth of his back through their suits as he backs up.   
  
2, 1.   
  
"Shit," Lance mutters under his breath, and Keith moves, lightning fast.   
  


  
  
It hurts. 

It _ burns _ . 

It's exactly the way he'd expected it to be, and somehow nothing at all like that at the same time. 

It's searing pain, unlike anything else; it’s pressure and heat.

It’s so much  _ blinding pain _ .    
  
Lance shoots his attacker down swiftly, coldblooded and in short range. Keith's covering the gaping wound on his stomach, breathing irregularly, feeling the blood gushing out of him, on his fingers, hitting the ground in gross thick splatters. All he can do right then is look at Lance, heavy breathing as he casts a final look around them, perusing the grounds.   
  
He looks just like some sort of avenging angel, Keith thinks, bathed in the blood of the enemy.   
  
His knees hit the ground at the same time Lance is done with his evaluation and falling to his side, eyes wide and fearful.   


“Hang in there, cowboy,” he says, and calls for help, loud and desperate. He looks back at Keith, and he’s trying to hold it together for him, but Keith can see the fear clear as day in him, and can’t help but wonder if this is how he looked at Lance all those times. “It’s gonna be fine, okay? It’s just— it’s just a small injury, okay? You’ll be fine.” 

Lance is the one lying to him this time.

And it’s okay.

One of Lance’s hands hovers over Keith’s wound, and Keith reaches his own hand out —hissing from the effort— so he can can hold it. It’s dry, cold and soothing when compared to his, and Keith feels absolutely no regrets about his choice.

“Hey, Lance—” He grunts out, as he starts hearing people approaching them. “C’mere, I need to— I need to tell you something.”  

“Can’t it wait?” Lance asks. “Until you’re, like, not bleeding out? This is some epically bad time for you to develop your communicative skills, my man—”

“I will haunt you,” Keith tells him, in jest, and Lance’s face drains of all color. “Sorry. C’mere okay?”

“Okay,” Lance breathes out, shaky, and leans closer to Keith. 

“ _ Closer _ .” 

“Why—? You know what,  _ fine _ .”

When Lance’s face is looming above his, Keith puts all his remaining energy into lifting himself up —almost blacking out in the process from the pain— and leaving a short, chaste kiss on Lance’s lips, lopsided and barely a brush of lips, but absolutely everything he needs right now.

“What’s— what does that mean? What’s—  _ Keith _ —?”

Keith just smiles up at Lance’s flushed, mystified —and still scared underneath, so scared— face. He doesn’t reply, doesn’t know how to. Doesn’t think he could if he wanted to, anymore, with his tongue going heavy inside his mouth, just like his eyelids, just like the rest of him.

Lance’s eyes stray from him for a second as the steps draw closer. He sighs in relief before looking back at Keith with a small, soft smile, and Keith wants  _ that _ to be the last thing he sees before he dies.

He closes his eyes.

Lance squeezes his hand and calls his name in a tiny uncertain voice, almost getting swallowed by the noise as Allura starts giving directions to the others.

It’s fine.

Everything is fine.

He welcomes darkness with open arms.


	6. Chapter 6

_ Keith! _

Darkness.

_ “Keith!” _

A gasp.

_ “Keith!” _

_ His _ gasp. He gasps again, and opens his eyes. He feels like he’s choking, can’t get enough air into his lungs. He grabs at his own shirt and pulls, but it doesn’t help.

Someone grabs his hands, and suddenly he’s staring into the eyes of Allura as he hyperventilates. 

“Keith, calm  _ down _ .”

He takes deep breaths, and stares into Allura’s eyes. 

“ _ Lance _ ,” he blurts out as soon as he’s not gasping for breath. 

He has no idea what’s going on, he’s supposed to be— he’s supposed to be dead. And he isn’t. He isn’t. That must mean Lance— no, no that can’t— 

Allura smiles at him.

“Lance is  _ fine _ , Keith. You’re both fine.” 

Keith sighs in relief, closing his eyes for a second. There’s a lump in his throat, and his eyes sting hotly. 

He inhales shakily. 

“What—” He pauses, swallows spit, “what day is it?”

“Fifteenth cycle of the fourth Altean lunar phase.”

Keith cries.

  
  


“I’m sorry,” Allura tells him as soon as Keith has calmed down. Keith notices for the first time that they’re alone here. He cranes his neck to look at his surroundings. It isn’t the infirmary wing. 

They’re in the training room. 

“What happened?”

“The simulators— we don’t know exactly  _ how _ yet— they malfunctioned when you and Lance were doing an exercise together. We’ve been trying to wake you up since. We didn’t want to unplug you before, just in case… just in case.”

Keith frowns.

“Did we—”

Allura waits for him.

“Didn’t we— didn’t we go on a mission? To— to Tebris?”

Allura frowns in confusion.

“Tebris? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Keith.”

“How long— how long have we been out? Is Lance— Is Lance awake?”

“About two cycles. Lance is fine. He woke up a couple of hours before you did, Hunk helped him to his room. He should be resting. As should be the other paladins. In fact, you should rest too. We don’t quite know what side effects this could have had on the both of you.”

Allura helps him up, then, slowly. 

  
  


There’s a knock on his door.

It’s Lance.

Keith’s breath hitches. His heart starts hammering inside his chest.

“Um— hi.” 

“ _ Hi _ ,” Lance replies, and Keith notices his tousled hair and the slight bags under his eyes, and the way he’s kind of shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Can I—”

“Yes.”

Lance lets out a small bout of laughter, and a bit of his nervousness seems to fade away with it.

“You don’t even know what I was about to ask. What if it’s something gross? What if I was about to ask you to try one of Coran's delicacies?”

Keith shrugs. He can’t honestly say he cares right now.

Lance’s whole face softens. 

“I was gonna ask if I can sleep with you tonight.”

“Yes.” Keith repeats, even as his face burns and his heart threatens to jump out of his chest.

“You’re not even gonna think it over? What if I kick in my sleep? What if I’m a blanket hogger?”

Keith shrugs again. He grabs one of Lance’s hands and pulls him inside.

“I don’t care right now.”

Lance looks him right in the eye then, as the door slides closed behind them. His eyes run over Keith’s face, as if looking for something. 

“You had— the loop thing, you went through that too, right? It wasn’t just me?”  

Keith’s stomach drops at that.

“You too?” He asks, involuntarily squeezing Lance’s hand.

Lance nods and lets out a shaky breath.

“So you― you get it, then. When I close my eyes I see you― and then when I woke up I felt like I was suffocating, like it was all happening all over again. It’s―”

“―Really, really shitty.” Keith offers.

Lance nods.

“It was― jeez, Keith, it was awful. I saw you die so many times, and I couldn’t― I couldn’t do anything― I never felt so powerless.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees. “I know.”

Lance grins at him, and something in Keith’s stomach flutters.

“Did you― did you have the dreams, too?” Lance asks then, a soft whisper.

Keith nods, whispers  _ yes _ .

Lance bites his lip, and looks at the floor.

“Let’s go to bed,” Keith proposes. 

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, looking back up at him, a lopsided smile on his face. “Everything else can wait, right?”

“Right.”

  
  


Lance doesn’t kick in his sleep. Or hog the blankets.

What he does, though, is spoon Keith, burrowing his nose in Keith’s hair.

Keith sleeps soundly. Better than he remembers doing in ages.

  
  


The next morning Lance rouses him softly, and when Ketih’s awake enough he points with his chin at something behind Keith, and Keith turns around in Lance’s arms.

Sixteenth cycle of the fourth Altean lunar phase.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains various instances of Lance dying inside a time loop. This is only temporary, though, and he's alive and well in the end :)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Come and hang out with me on tumblr!](http://memekon.tumblr.com)


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